“This is 100 brain cells firing,” says Nicolelis. “Everything that defines what human nature is comes from these storms that roll over the hills and valleys of our brains and define our memories, our beliefs, our feelings, our plans for the future.”

In this talk, given at TEDMed, Nicolelis describes how his team created what they call a “brain machine interface” which uses censors to listen to brainstorms, extract their motor messages, translate them into digital commands and send them to artificial device to reproduce movement. What does this mean? A monkey, named Aurora, whose brainwaves controlled, first, a robotic arm that played video games for her and, next, a human-like avatar six times her size on the other side of the world.

To hear more about how this works, and the implications it could have for those who’ve lost motor function — as well as for us all — watch this mind-bending talk. Here, more talks on monkeys and brain control.